TxDOT faces lawsuit, civil rights complaint over plans to widen I-35 through Central Austin

Texas highway officials planning to widen Interstate 35 through Central Austin, where construction is slated to begin later this year, face a new legal challenge from opponents concerned about possible environmental and public health effects. In a lawsuit filed Friday, the 15 plaintiffs — a group of organizations and neighborhood associations and a former state lawmaker — are asking a judge to rule that the state's plans violate federal laws outlining how environmental impacts are considered and to require the Texas Department of Transportation to halt any further development of the $4.5 billion project. The lawsuit raises concerns about the project's possible effects on Austin's traditionally economically disadvantaged and nonwhite neighborhoods, particularly in East Austin. Further expansion of I-35 builds on the highway's past as a dividing line used to further racist policies that were harmful to minorities in the decades since it was built, the lawsuit claims.

Whether, and to what degree, the lawsuit could affect the project remains to be seen. In a statement Saturday, TxDOT Executive Director Marc Williams said the agency would "vigorously defend" the project, which has been decades in the making, and the process that informed it. “We have carefully followed and even exceeded the environmental and legal requirements to advance this project. We don’t believe that the actions of these opponents have merit," Williams said. "TxDOT intends to continue to press forward to deliver the I-35 Capital Express Central project.” The current plan TxDOT aims to implement is the result of a "painstaking effort to reduce adverse impacts," Williams said. Growth projected in the coming decades in the Austin area makes timely improvements to I-35 critical, he added. The project, called I-35 Capital Express Central, would run about 8 miles from the interstate's north intersection with U.S. 290 down to where Texas 71 crosses I-35 in South Austin — one of the state's most congested stretches of highway. Four new "managed lanes" would be added in each direction for vehicles carrying two or more passengers, first responders and Capital Metro buses through this stretch. The highway's upper decks near downtown, installed in 1975, would be demolished.